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Main  Lib. 


cmtooor  ?Ufe  of 
California 


Cfje  ©utfcoor  Hilt  of 
California 


<Srccr  ipartison 


of  tt>e  SDlpafic  €lub 
«.  JF. 


E  live  in  our  lungs;  there- 
fore, anything  that  improves 
our  abode  is  of  importance. 
The  question  naturally  arises, 
"  What  is  the  best  method  of 
increasing  lung  power? "  The  answer  is, 
"  Deep  breathing  of  pure  air."  In  other 
words,  the  continuous  exercise  of  the  lungs  in 
inhaling  clean  air  and  exhaling  impure  air. 
Exercise  in  the  open  is  the  way  of  enlarging 
the  breathing  capacity  of  the  lungs. 

Throughout  California  the  conditions  of 
climate  are  such  that  lung  exercise  may  be  in- 
dulged in  at  all  times  without  risk  to  any 
organ.  The  temperature  is  never  oppressive; 
no  blizzards,  no  cutting  winds,  no  stabbing  of 
the  lungs  by  frozen  air:  a  genial,  balmy,  yet 
exhilerating  atmosphere  everywhere.  San 
Francisco  has  a  mean  temperature  of  65  de- 
grees. The  temperature  throughout  the  State 
makes  a  mean  of  about  60  degrees.  In  the 
interior  the  air  is  so  dry  that  at  a  summer 
temperature  of  100  degrees,  outdoor  sports, 
tramps,  and  mountain  climbing  are  as  freely 
indulged  in  as  in  the  autumn.  In  midwinter 
outdoor  amusement,  such  as  long-distance 
tramps,  shooting,  fishing,  and  swimming,  are 

3 


enthusiastically  pursued.  On  Christmas  day 
of  1903,  and  on  New  Year's  day  of  1904, 
the  writer  led  some  seventy-five  members  of 
the  Olympic  Club  over  a  ten-mile  tramp 
right  into  the  Pacific  Ocean,  where  the  party 
breasted  the  breakers,  played  leapfrog  on  the 
shore,  and  gamboled  and  scampered  like  lads 
of  ten,  and  not  a  man  caught  cold.  All  over 
California  there  is  in  the  air  an  electrical 
stimulant  which  is  most  bracing  and  which 
does  away  with  that  tired  feeling  so  common 
elsewhere. 

Then  we  have  the  pines,  the  aroma  from 
which  is  almost  an  intoxicant  and  is  the  most 
subtle  and  effective  of  lung  tonics. 

We  have  the  redwoods;  giants,  grand, 
stately  towers  in  the  forest.  The  exhalation 
from  these  acts  upon  the  lungs  as  a  light  mas- 
sage and  emollient. 

We  have  rivers  and  mountains,  lakes  and 
valleys,  not  exceeded  in  natural  beauty  any- 
where. 

We  have  pine-clad  and  brush-clad  hills  to 
clamber  through,  which  is  a  joy  without  limit. 
The  pleasure  in  hill-climbing  is  increased  al- 
ways by  the  beauty  of  the  landscape,  the  rivers 
or  the  ocean,  with  islands,  points,  promon- 

4 


OLYMPIC    CLUB    MEMBERS    TAKING    A    DIP    ON    CHRISTMAS 
DAY,     1903 


tories,  and  straits  which  fill  the  eye  every- 
where and  yield  a  sense  of  enjoyment  found 
only  in  the  use  of  the  eye  and  the  muscles. 

California  is  a  land  of  brown  shadows  and 
blue  skies — the  brown  of  the  hillside,  the  blue 
of  the  ocean,  produce  unpainted  pictures  in 
lavish  abundance.  Wild  flowers — unwritten 
poems — greet  you  everywhere.  Waterfalls, 
the  joy  tears  of  the  mountain  sprites;  cascades, 
in  whose  music  you  hear  the  weeping  of  wood 
nymphs  over  dead  forest  kings.  The  bubbling, 
babbling  brooks,  interpreting  the  song  of  their 
silver-coated  citizens ;  the  cooing  of  the  dove, 
the  whir  of  the  quail,  the  whiz  of  the  snipe, 
the  honking  of  the  wild  goose,  and  the  frou- 
frou of  the  duck — all  these  are  for  the  man 
who  loves  Nature  and  desires  to  be  at  home 
with  her,  and  are  common  everywhere  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

Here  the  sportsman  finds  his  paradise,  and 
here  are — 

Birds:  Mountain  and  valley  quail,  English 
jacksnipe,  wild  pigeon,  blue  grouse,  sage  hen, 
robin  (big,  full-bodied  birds),  meadow  lark, 
curlew,  black  ibis,  billhead  plover,  vacet,  wil- 
let  (snipe),  king  rail,  Virginian  rail,  reed 
bird,  robin  snipe,  sandpiper. 
6 


Ducks:  Widgeon,  teal,  sprig,  gadwell,  can- 
vasback,  redhead,  butterball,  ruddy,  blue-bill, 
Mexican  tree  duck,  brownhead  or  whistler, 
mallard,  spoonbill. 

Big  game:  Brown  or  cinnamon  bear,  black 
bear,  elk,  mule  deer,  blacktail  deer,  silver- 
gray  fox,  red  fox,  California  lion  (puma). 

Small  game:  Gray  squirrel,  pine  squirrel; 
rabbit — cottontail,  brush,  and  hare;  beaver 
and  ground-hog. 

Fish:  Salmon — landlocked,  quinnat,  blue- 
back,  hookbill;  trout — rainbow,  cut-throat, 
red  speckled,  brook,  Loch  Levin,  Von 
Behr,  and  golden;  rock  cod — blue  and  red; 
flounders,  tomcod,  smelt,  halibut,  barracuda, 
striped  bass;  perch — redtail,  surf,  and  big- 
eye;  sole,  white  bait,  pompano  (butterfish), 
sturgeon,  shad,  anchovies,  sardines. 

Fish,  birds,  big  and  small  game  can  be 
reached  easily  by  short-rail  routes;  and  then 
comes  the  true  pleasure  of  the  sport — the 
climbing,  clambering,  tramping;  the  oxida- 
tion of  the  lungs  and  muscles ;  the  joy,  the  pure 
physical  joy,  of  movement;  the  luxury  that 
follows  the  overcoming  of  difficulties;  the 
scramble  over  big  rocks;  the  climb  over  hills 
carpeted  with  pine  needles,  and  the  enthrall- 

7 


ing  sense  of  victory  when  the  objective  point  is 
reached. 

Alone  in  the  woods — alone  with  God! 
Alone  on  the  mountain  top,  you  are  reverent 
and  prayerful,  but  never  sad  or  depressed. 
Breathing  in  the  pure  mountain  air,  you 
breathe  in  hope,  inspiration,  and  you  would 
commune  with  the  Master  of  the  World,  and 
rejoice  that  you  live  and  move  and  find  har- 
mony in  your  heart.  You  can  throw  your  cap 
peakward  and  shout  like  the  schoolboy  out  for 
his  holiday;  for  you  have  drawn  away  from, 
and  mounted  high  above,  the  pettiness  of  the 
lesser  life.  You  have  shuffled  off  the  business 
coil  which  bound  you  to  your  desk;  you  are 
free,  and  the  thought  of  freedom  is  yours ;  and 
you  are  buoyant  and  gleeful  and  in  love  with 
all  the  world. 

California  is  the  home  of  the  artist;  indeed, 
California  is  another  Italy,  and  a  new  Virgil 
would  write  the  Bucolics  and  Georgics  as  of 
and  about  the  Italia  of  the  Pacific.  Virgilian 
description  of  the  old  Italy  exactly  fits  the 
newer  and  richer  state.  But  we  have  color 
effects  here,  not  known,  I  think,  even  in  Italy. 
Take  the  hills  overlooking  San  Francisco — 
Marin  hills — and  you  have  a  bronze-brown 
8 


OLYMPIC    CLUB    MIDWINTER    OUTING 


effect  in  color  that  is  tantalizingly  beautiful,, 
because  you  want  to  catch  and  hold  it  as  a 
something  too  exquisite  to  be  left  to  itself. 
You  have  an  infinite  variety  of  shadings  to  this 
weird  brown ;  indeed,  there  is  a  kaleidoscopic 
change,  from  second  to  second,  which  is  liter- 
ally fascinating. 

Then  our  sunsets;  in  them  there  is  a  su- 
preme beauty,  since  all  colors,  all  shades — 
dazzling,  noting,  perplexing — mingle  with 
or  are  a  part  of  the  rays  which  glorify  the 
sky,  the  hills,  the  valleys,  the  seas,  the  ocean, 
with  a  light  that  is  as  the  smile  of  the  Eternal. 
Here  is  the  place  in  which  to  breathe  the  sun- 
shine. Light  and  colors  are  inhaled,  and  it  is 
time  some  one  explained  the  beneficent  effect 
of  the  inhalation  on  the  blood  and  brain  and 
moral  nature  of  man.  California  is  the  solar- 
ium of  the  world.  When  the  sun  throws  aside 
the  robes  of  night  and  breathes  his  morning 
benediction,  until  his  evening  prayer,  when 
his  lingering  blessing  touches  everything  with 
his  kiss,  there  is  a  golden  dusk  or  a  sun- 
charged  atmosphere  in  which  man  may  drink 
a  newer,  richer  draught  of  life. 

And  the  ocean,  the  Pacific;  never  monoton- 
ously  peaceful;  just  a  vast  champagne  bathy 
10 


a  universal  salt  glow,  where  massage  is  free  to 
all  the  world.  Always  open,  never  a  bar  to 
ingress;  no  ice,  no  snow;  a  storm  only  mo- 
mentary and  joyous  excitement.  The  roar  of 
the  breakers  an  organ  peal,  the  swell  a  flowing 
song,  the  spume  an  electric  bath.  Summer  or 
winter,  never  a  day  when  you  can  not  safely 
enter  the  Pacific,  plunging  and  swimming, 
breasting  breakers  or  high  waves,  with  a  feel- 
ing of  victorious  pleasure  and  a  sense  of  fit- 
ness that  is  a  promise  of  eternal  youth. 

From  San  Francisco  to  San  Diego  and 
thence  to  Catalina  Islands  there  are  bays,  in- 
lets, roadsteads,  where  foaming  steeds,  white 
horses  of  the  sea,  rush  madly  to  the  shore. 
Here  the  strong  swimmer  finds  joy  inexpres- 
sible. Dashing  under  the  swirling  breakers 
he  floats  triumphantly  for  a  moment  in  the 
long  hollows  of  the  ocean,  and  then  with  an 
increasing  vigor  again  and  again  evades  the 
rush  of  waters  and  with  practiced  arms  steers 
his  way  to  the  "sea  incarnadine"  that  lies  like 
another  sky  beyond  the  breakers.  Here,  sum- 
mer or  winter,  he  flings  aside  the  resisting 
waters  and  heads  oceanward — a  long,  steady 
pressure,  an  overhead  stroke  or  a  side  stroke 
carries  him  far  from  view,  until  presently  he 

1 1 


turns  shoreward  with  rapid  strokes  when  he 
once  more  margins  the  breakers.  These  he 
uses  like  a  circus  rider,  and  mounts  horse  after 
horse  until  he  is  again  on  the  shore  lines.  The 
strength  of  it,  the  joy  of  it,  only  the  swimmer 
can  feel. 

And  all  this  in  winter  as  safely  as  in  sum- 
mer. Indeed,  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  winter  in 
the  Golden  State.  All  days  are  open  to  the 
athlete  and  his  pleasures. 

If  you  tire  of  the  old  ocean,  then  turn  your 
eyes  lakeward.  Tahoe  sits  in  the  Sierra  like 
a  great  golden-gray  bowl,  full  of  limpid  water 
teeming  with  silver-coated  trout;  guarded  by 
mountain  ranges  so  weird  in  form  and  in  color 
that  one  naturally  looks  for  the  gnomes,  elfs, 
goblins,  which  have,  or  ought  to  have,  their 
homes  in  the  curious  crevices,  caverns,  brakes, 
peaks,  domes,  curves,  and  bends  which  make 
of  Mount  Tallac  and  his  kin  a  giant's  cause- 
way leading  to  a  land  of  delight.  Tahoe  is 
6,000  feet  above  the  sea  level ;  Mount  Tallac 
is  3,000  odd  feet  above  the  lake,  and  from  its 
rugged  peak  you  look  down  upon  a  score  of 
lakes  set  like  precious  gems  in  a  setting  of 
emerald  green.  The  tramp  to  Tallac's  gray 
top  is  just  rough  enough  to  give  an  added  in- 
12 


terest;  it  is  a  stiff  climb,  but  when  the  peak  is 
under  your  feet  you  forget  everything  except 
the  glory  and  the  joy  of  the  vista. 

You  tire  of  the  lake  scenery?  Then  off  to 
the  McCloud  River  for  trout,  or  to  Monterey 
Bay  for  salmon  trolling,  or  the  Sacramento 
for  perch  and  salmon.  Oh,  I  could  name  you 
hundreds  of  places  in  which  to  be  glad  that 
God  made  you ! 

Once  a  year,  usually  in  the  month  of  Au- 
gust, members  of  the  Bohemian  Club  of  San 
Francisco  shake  the  city  dust  from  their  feet 
and  for  three  weeks  make  their  home  in 
the  heart  of  the  redwood  forest.  'Neath  the 
green  sentinels,  whose  feathery  plumes  sweep 
the  patines  of  Heaven,  they  pitch  their  tents 
and  abandon  themselves' to  a  life  that  is  in  har- 
mony with  Nature.  The  fisherman  fishes  and 
the  pedestrian  makes  his  ten  or  fifteen  miles 
daily,  whilst  others  lie  prone  on  the  bosom  of 
Mother  Earth,  breathing  in  the  forest  air  with 
a  sense  of  pure  enjoyment.  The  singer  and 
the  story-teller  weave  fancies  that  find  ex- 
pression in  music  and  literature  and  painting. 
Others  group  themselves  in  nooks  and  hollows 
and  wonder  what  the  record  of  the  giant  trees 
-would  read  like  if  only  Nature  enabled  them 


UWV 


to  reveal  their  knowledge.  These  trees  were 
above  ground  long  before  the  Babylonian  em- 
pire fell.  They  were  lofty  pillars  of  the  forest 
when  Joseph  went  down  into  Egypt,  and  they 
were  probably  full  grown  when  Christ  was 
taken  by  another  Joseph  to  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs.  Europe  was  the  home  of  barbar- 
ous tribes  when  these  felt  their  full  growth; 
and  civilization  after  civilization  appeared, 
fulfilled  its  destiny  and  was  succeeded  by  new 
thoughts,  new  purposes,  these  to  make  room 
for  the  dominant  purpose  of  to-day.  Yet  these 
trees  lived  and  breathed  ere  England  or 
America  had  a  name  or  a  place  upon  the  map 
of  the  world. 

California  is  the  only  country  in  the  world, 
• w  I  think,  where  midsummer  is  entirely  free  of 
v  rain  and  where  it  would  be  possible  to  spend 
three  or  four  weeks  absolutely  in  the  open. 

Polo,  football,  baseball,  and  tennis  are  play- 
able all  the  year  through ;  and  golf,  lacrosse, 
and  cricket  are  only  temporarily  retarded  by 
the  degree  of  wet  in  the  soil  after  our  annual 
shower  bath.  Thousands  of  our  young  lads 
and  lassies  pay  no  attention  to  rain,  but  pursue 
their  walks  in  wet  weather  as  in  dry.  Indeed, 
few  outdoor  pursuits  are  affected  by  our  wet 
season.  We  have  usually  three  or  four  days' 

15 


rain,  followed  by  a  fortnight  of  the  most  de- 
lightful weather — clear,  bright,  sunful  days 
when  one  rejoices  in  life. 

In  the  bay  counties  we  have  sea  fogs,  which 
are  of  infinite  service  to  all  growing  things, 
and  are  to  many  a  source  of  pleasure  in  their 
effect  upon  the  skin. 

But  the  great  charm  of  California  is  that 
always  and  everywhere  you  can  live  in  the 
open,  except  in  the  brief  interval  when  rain  is 
most  abundant. 

Fullness  of  days,  rather  than  length,  is  the 
desideratum.  A  weak  man  is  a  travesty  on 
Nature.  Better  fifty  years  of  strenuous,  full 
life  than  one  hundred  years  of  vegetable  exist- 
ence. But  in  California  long  life  and  full 
days  go  together.  In  the  free,  open  life  of  the 
Golden  State  there  is  no  excuse  for  lack  of 
health;  only  the  inherently  indolent  suffer. 
All  who  accept  the  treasures  of  the  air,  the 
sea,  the  forest,  and  the  ocean  as  their  own  put 
on  the  full  garb  of  man  and  woman  and  live 
such  a  full  life  as  can  be  lived  only  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

The  joy  of  living;  the  rapid-coursing,  life- 
making  blood;    the  clean,   full  lungs;    the 
buoyancy  of  youth  in  middle-aged  man — these 
are  ours,  and  we  thank  God  for  life! 
16 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


uEC    21   1933 


RECEIVED 


FEB   4 


1984 


NU1 


OCT1Q1984 


LD  21-95m-7 ,'37 


